Episode 154 (Manga)
Synopsis Nina lies alone in her cell, berating herself for her cowardice. She stares at her right index finger, the fingernail of which is displaced and bleeding. She is ashamed of her selfishness, and is unsure whether she should focus on saving Casca or saving herself. Suddenly, the door of her cell is being furiously rapped on by someone outside, who yells for her to get out and escape. Before she can ask questions, another person's voice tells the first voice to leave the prisoners behind. Suddenly fearful for her life, Nina approaches her side of the door and asks what is happening. The first voice replies that monsters have appeared inside the Tower of Conviction. Sure enough, when Nina looks towards the floor of her cell, she sees blood rising up from between the cracks in the flagstone. She furiously bangs her hands against the door, begging to be let out, when a key is inserted into the lock outside the door and twisted. The door is forced open by Nina's punches. Fearing that the people outside (who Nina presumes are her jailers) might hurt her, she quickly shrinks back into a corner of her cell obediently. It is only then that she realizes the people outside are not jailers, but are in fact Luca, Isidro and Jerome, who have come to free her. Jerome in particular feels uneasy about the commotion occurring on the lower levels of the Tower of Conviction. Isidro takes the keys from him and proceeds to open the cells containing the other imprisoned heretics, intending to use them as a diversion for the monsters while he, Jerome, Luca and Nina escape the Tower. Luca thanks Jerome, who is both a heretic hunter and Holy Iron Chain Knight, for helping them despite it likely ruining his social standing and endangering his life. He replies that he's doing it out of his affections for her, which makes her realize that he may be more noble than he appears. He then moves to take the group out of the Tower of Conviction, but Luca tells him that there's one more person that they need to find: Casca. Luca turns to Nina and asks her of Casca's whereabouts, but Nina cannot bring herself to answer. Jerome answers for her, guessing that Casca is in the underground torture chamber. However, as they move down the dark hallway, they hear a faint noise emanating from the darkness ahead of them. As they watch in horror and confusion, an enormous mass of blood which forms several faces slowly makes its way towards them. Guts pushes open the large doors to the torture chamber, Farnese following close behind. While the room was previously filled with blood, it is now mostly dry. The only things left in the room are the skeletons of the tortured heretics, who were alive only minutes before, still strapped to the torture devices. Guts' first thoughts upon seeing the grisly scene are of Casca, and he worries that her skeleton is among those of the heretics. A sound alerts him to a helmet behind him, which trembles and slowly moves across the floor. Guts picks it up and finds Puck hiding within it. Guts asks the elf what happened to Casca and is informed that she was swallowed by all the blood. Yet, unlike the heretics, who were stripped of everything but their bones upon being engulfed, Casca's presence is still felt by Puck, igniting hope that she is still alive. Farnese is extremely confused by what she sees. From her perspective, Guts is talking into a torturer's helmet, seemingly not in his right mind. It is then that she first perceives the elf, and is shocked by it. She recalls that she'd actually seen him while she was possessed too, but had repressed the memory of the event. Now having no need of her, Guts tells Farnese that she is free to do as she pleases as long as she doesn't get in his way. He leaves her alone in the torture chamber. After a few moments, the small puddles of blood in the room begin to stir, and each forms into a face. She decides to follow the Black Swordsman out of the room. Meanwhile, Mozgus and his disciples are in the topmost room of the Tower of Conviction, where Mozgus regularly prays. The two strongest disciples are holding the doors shut, barring the way of the mass of blood. Mozgus tells his faithful followers that they have nothing to fear, perceiving the threat as a test of their faith. The blood smashes through the door just as the mysterious being drops down into the room from the hole in the ceiling, hanging upside-down by one of its tentacles. Characters in Order of Appearance *Guts *Casca *Puck *Jerome *Isidro *Luca *Mozgus *Mozgus' Disciples *Egg of the Perfect World *Farnese